


Somthing Softer

by Rudublynn



Series: Keep Marching On (Universe) [1]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Angst, Car Accidents, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Regret, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 04:22:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8272690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rudublynn/pseuds/Rudublynn
Summary: The world crashes at 11:24 AM, a bright Saturday morning.Everyone in the Smith family household stares in horror as the sun stills. The clocks cease to tick. Street lights do not change color. Every pendulum of grandfather clocks have frozen.Some flock to churches, devour faith like now is truly the end of time. “My D-dad  tried to call me,” Morty says, a joint between his pianist fingers. Disinterested, he watches the smoke drift from the smoldering end.  “Did you answer?” Rick asks, eyes not leaving the road he drove on.“No. Should I have?” "No."Dimension R-0072 Rick tries to block out the radio static with something softer.





	

Two months.

Rick slept in a bed meant to be his. Rented longer then his pay grade would allow. The notice slipped under the door frame being any evedence from Sanchez's rooted spot. His grandsons luggage still on the floor, sprawled state between un&packing. How did the man like to see it in reverse.  
He couldn't... can’t work, can’t move can’t- think.

_Two months. ___

__Floating-drowning awake and starved. unconscious and sick. This room a prison and small paradise in itself. The old man hoisted himself upright, head imprint left behind on his lone pillow. He hadn't fluffed it in a while. Welcoming in the darkened surrounding he toes around a second for the disregarded cloth he had thrown hours before. A swear leaves him as his ankle met door frame before he found the very thing his mind sought.__

Memories of the dead cling to his skin, too-tight cotton of forgotten night shirts. His rib-cage became girdle, sucking skin and secrets into his chest cavity. Rick sways his standing position; But, as this, he smells ghosts, echoes of old people in ironed scarves, long-since not-touched. Most of Mortys clothes warm Rick's skin, perhaps in shame he's gathered. Colorful remnants, gravestone memoirs of brighter times, and he could hear: psychedelic rock and murmurs of the previous revolutions. Mothballs are too bitter to swallow, and yet they taste as revelations sound. Awaken.

He holds aside the torn yellow shirt, squinting at the dried blood stains in the moon light. Rick eases back into the bed again, his head swimming amidst the rooms overlapping shadows. Morty Smith at 16, docking life at the shores of the Chesapeake, he could of never been closer. Rick ponders on if he should of gotten to know the kid at all. A candle burns, waiting to be blown out. Separate from the norm, he could still smell the boy. His grandson. Because he burned a candle not to smell him exactly, because the boy is in-fact here. Rick can't yet figure out where yet.

_“IT’S GON-N BE ALL RIGHT. PAPPY”_

That't what Morty had called him or maybe that saying was just from another one of Beth's soap Operas. Rick frowns, the creases of his lips dry against the pillow. Head turned at the side as he envelopes the orange lit corner. Then did he truly take in the clump of fabric at his finger tips, hand draped over the bed side. Nails grazing the floor with a gentle reminder. The flowered scarves of the bo-no child's past delight warmed him. Rick had called it a 'shit giggling girly thing. Once. Come to realize It is now a warmth that sends shivers down his spine, a dwindling fire, that leaves ice in its burning wake.

Morty speaks sometimes without body or soul. Little moments like this that cause the Scientist to think back. To relive.  
He put his hand on his grandsons. Shaking, eyes widening holding the small body as he dialed 911.

_“We will meet again,” _Morty whispers, a wind rogue, words imaginary.__

He is here, even as everything disappears.

_“No, we wont,” ___

Sigh the dying cries of the voided apartment room. Rick eyes up the 66 sign flickering beyond his window. Bones of dead memories creak in the crumple of old t-shirts. The blood he noted earlier. For the counting between his own heart beats, he let tears fall on the stains for their now blackened.

Car lights danced in his vision. There's the blaring of the big truck's horns again as he tears the pillow over his ears. 

"I-I swear Morty I'll think about this shi-crap tomorrow. Let me sleep."

_"Watch the road, R-ick." ___


End file.
